Please note: we have been online over ten years, and we want The Trek BBS to continue as a free site. But if you block our ads we are at risk.Please consider unblocking ads for this site - every ad you view counts and helps us pay for the bandwidth that you are using. Thank you for your understanding.

Welcome! The Trek BBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans. Please login to see our full range of forums as well as the ability to send and receive private messages, track your favourite topics and of course join in the discussions.

If you are a new visitor, join us for free. If you are an existing member please login below. Note: for members who joined under our old messageboard system, please login with your display name not your login name.

The problem is "could care less" is recorded in American English usage even earlier than Couldn't Care Less.

That's not what the article says. (Emphasis added.)

A bit of history first: the original expression, of course, was I couldn’t care less, meaning “it is impossible for me to have less interest or concern in this matter, since I am already utterly indifferent”. It is originally British. The first record of it in print I know of is in 1946, as the title of a book by Anthony Phelps, recording his experiences in Air Transport Auxiliary during World War II. By then it had clearly become sufficiently well known that he could rely on its being recognised. It seems to have reached the US some time in the 1950s and to have become popular in the latter part of that decade. The inverted form I could care less was coined in the US and is found only there. It may have begun to be used in the early 1960s, though it turns up in a written form only in 1966.

__________________“All the universe or nothingness. Which shall it be, Passworthy? Which shall it be?”

Hmmm, I remembered previously reading that, while couldn't care less certainly appeared in British usage before could care less appeared in American usage, that couldn't care less didn't appear in American usage until after. However, you're probably right.

Still, given that it only appeared in American usage, it seems logical to conclude that it was more of a cultural thing, rather than just someone messing up.

"You live here!", said after I would tell a visitor that I'm not sure how to get to a place in an part of town I don't frequent".

Just because I live in a given city doesn't mean I know exactly how to go to a tourist spot with a well mapped out route. I lived in the DC area for about nine years combined, and I couldn't tell you exactly how to get to the Pentagon from my university or even my in-laws' (via car).

^Wow, I get asked by tourists for directions all the time, and they're never bitchy to me when I don't know how to get somewhere. How annoying! Once I overheard a dude giving directions to some particularly obnoxious tourists who wanted to get to Broadway. Without missing a beat he told them to take the A train to Broadway Junction. It was mean, but also hilarious.

^Wow, I get asked by tourists for directions all the time, and they're never bitchy to me when I don't know how to get somewhere. How annoying! Once I overheard a dude giving directions to some particularly obnoxious tourists who wanted to get to Broadway. Without missing a beat he told them to take the A train to Broadway Junction. It was mean, but also hilarious.

They must like you, not me.

I remember this one time when I was in a group hanging out somewhere, when a car stopped. The driver asked for directions to some place. One of the guys gave him direction to some locale in the opposite direction.